Pasquale Moliterni received both his BSc in Computer Engineering and his MSc in Robotics and Control Systems Engineering from the University of Pisa. During his university studies, he was a visiting scholar at the Technical University of Delft. From 2010 to 2012, he was an Industrial Researcher at Euro-Mediterranean Incubator in e-Business Management of University of Salento (Lecce - Italy). For the last two year, he worked as Systems and Control Engineer in the Department of Diagnostic Solutions for Railways Applications at MerMec SpA. He is currently a Freelance Robotics and Control Systems Engineer and he also works as Algorithm Design and Development Engineer for a research programme funded by the Italian Space Agency.

Nicola Di Lecce received both his BSc in Computer Engineering and his MSc in Robotics and Control Systems Engineering from the University of Pisa. From April 2010 until June 2011 he worked as Firmware Engineer at Gemme SpA (Livorno - Italy). From June 2011 until November 2012, he worked as Control Engineer at the Bio-Robotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna(Pontedera, Pisa - Italy). Since November 2012, he is a PhD student in Unmanned Marine Robotics at the Bio-Robotics Institute.

The Laborics Team is composed by Pasquale Moliterni and Nicola Di Lecce. They are both Engineers with a strong background on robotics applications and control systems design and development. Nicola is pursuing his career in the academic research participating to several European research projects whilst Pasquale, after his academic research experience, decided to focus on applied research, working at innovative products and solutions.

Both team members have experience and knowledge in safe and effective human−robot collaboration, compliant manipulation and grasping, dynamic control of autonomous vehicles in challenging environments which are central themes of the European Robotics Challenges.

In particular, Nicola is currently conducting research regarding the development of control techniques for safe human-robot cooperative manipulation. Also, he collaborated for his dissertation project with the Institute of Intelligent Systems for Automation of the Italian National Research Council, designing and developing robust solutions for trajectory tracking of autonomous vessels [1]. He participated to the ESA lunar challenge in 2008 designing control algorithms for the lunar robot (David).

Pasquale conducted researches on the human-robot collision at Interdepartmental Research Center "E. Piaggio" of University of Pisa and worked on the innovative technologies which will enable the innovative and sustainable manufacturing in the next future [2]. He is currently working on the development and the optimization of radargrammetric algorithms for Digital Elevation Model (DEM) generation using techniques strictly related to the computer vision used for the navigation and the control of autonomous vehicles and robots.

Nicola's theoretical approach, together with Pasquale's practical skills in the design and development of systems, ensure this team has a great potential to deal with the robotics challenges. They have a wide range of common competences and skills, so they easily share their knowledge, information and ideas. Last, but not least, they have been knowing each other for years and they both live in Italy, in two different cities, using Internet to work together and collaborate.

A Sliding Mode Based Guidance System for Vehicle-Following Operations (PDF)

Developing the Next Generation of Engineers for Intelligent and Sustainable Manufacturing: A Case Study (PDF)